


a truth universally acknowledged

by erebones



Series: a truth universally acknowledged [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Regency, Bathing/Washing, M/M, Massage, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Regency Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-04
Updated: 2016-09-04
Packaged: 2018-08-13 01:27:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7956796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erebones/pseuds/erebones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a cane and a lingering illness must be in want of a valet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a truth universally acknowledged

**Author's Note:**

> So I moved to a new apartment this week and life has been crazy (and seriously lacking in wifi), but here is this silly thing that I had a lot of fun writing. <3

The ride from London seems interminable. Felix chafes in the carriage, longing to escape and ride alongside with Dorian and Cullen as they trade jovial conversation, laughing and smiling sweetly enough to make his teeth ache. But he has been expressly forbidden by his doctor to engage in _excessive exercise_ , so instead he glares out the window and rolls his cane between his knees like an old codger, wishing he could just break the damn thing over his knee and be done with it.

He won’t, of course. It was a parting gift from his father when he left the continent, and it’s a beautiful thing, made of teak inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and a gorgeous round marble top capped with gold. Besides which, it hardly matters how well he feels—a dizzy spell is bound to come over him sooner or later, and he will be grateful for the crutch no matter how much it vexes him.

By the time they arrive at Honnleath, he is well and truly _vexed_ . Cullen keeps an informal house, and the servants aren’t assembled to greet them when they arrive, for which Felix is grateful. He doesn’t want to be looked at, or touched, or _breathed on_ until he has a chance to change and stretch his legs. His hosts don’t seem to notice, too pleased with themselves over some little joke that he was not privy to, and they stride ahead of him up the front steps while he hobbles behind, leaning harder on his cane than he’d like and pretending not to feel neglected.

Just inside they are met by the housekeeper, whose name Felix immediately forgets, and then Cullen turns to him with the sort of kind smile that Felix detests. “I hope you don’t mind, but since you haven’t brought a valet of your own with you, I took the liberty of arranging one for you.”

“I really don’t need—”

“You’d be doing me a favor, truly,” Cullen interrupts smoothly, exchanging a barely-there glance with Dorian that Felix knows he wasn’t meant to see. “He’s been a groundsman until only recently, and he’s still a bit… rough around the edges. He could use a steadying influence such as yourself to get his feet under him as a member of the household.”

“Very well,” Felix says, just to get him to shut up. It’s clear that Dorian had a hand in this, worrying over Felix’s ability to take care of himself, but he hasn’t the energy to combat their scheming right now. Tomorrow, when he’s rested and feeling more like himself, he’ll have a quiet word with Cullen and settle everything. “Thank you for your hospitality, I very much appreciate it.”

“Not at all, not at all. Come, I’ll show you your rooms, and Hawke will meet you there shortly.”

As he struggles up the steps behind Cullen, Dorian having gone elsewhere on some errand or other, Felix regrets his hasty acquiescence to Cullen’s offer. Or his demand, more like—he hadn’t precisely been given a choice. _Hawke_. What sort of name was that? Very English, and very dreary. It conjures up an image of an old, hunched man with a prominent nose and watery eyes, drifting about like a shadow and speaking in the sort of drone fit to put a man to sleep.

But it’s too late now. Cullen shows Felix to his room, a very nice guest suite made over in sage and cream, and he’s left standing in the middle of the chamber, leaning heavily on his cane and feeling just a little bit lost.

But he doesn’t have to wait long. There’s a quick tap on the door, and he turns around in time to watch as a man roughly the size of a house squeezes himself into the room. Felix gapes, just a little. He’s immensely tall, fair-skinned but flecked with freckles, dressed crisply in a frock coat that does little to contain the breadth of his shoulders. His hair is very dark, darker than a raven’s wing, and below surprisingly slim brows his eyes are sky-blue and piercing as they look Felix over in much the same way that Felix is looking over _him_. Felix wonders what he sees. A young man in his prime, elegantly dressed if a bit travel-weary? Or does he see what Felix sees when he looks in the mirror—a worn-out shadow of a man with sunken eyes and a body that hasn’t quite stopped failing him?

“Hello,” Felix says at last, when the silence stretches out a little too long to be comfortable. “You must be Hawke.”

“That’s right,” the man rumbles, dropping his eyes belatedly. Rough around the edges indeed, or would be if Felix was anything like a proper gentleman. “Cullen—er, Lord Rutherford asked that I attend you as your valet for the duration of your stay.”

Felix doesn’t want to be charmed by him, but he is. “Don’t worry, I’ve never really had a valet before, so your job will be easy. I usually prefer to fend for myself.”

“Er—as you like, of course, milord,” Hawke says, clearly taken aback. “Only I expect Lord Pavus won’t be particularly pleased by that.”

“Oh gods, I _knew_ this was his doing.” Felix rubs his his forehead with one hand, and when he drops it Hawke has assumed a veil of perfect politeness, chin up and hands folded behind his back, stretching the front of his frock coat absurdly.

“Apologies, my lord, for my impertinence. Please allow me to assist you.” A servant has already brought up Felix’s bags, and Hawke goes to them before Felix can summon a protest. “Would you prefer a bath before changing for dinner?”

“I…” Felix’s voice dies away as he watches Hawke  unpacking his things with brutal efficiency, hanging his coats in the wardrobe and laying his linens out on the clotheshorse to freshen them. Rough around the edges he might be, but in the duties of a valet he knows what he’s about. And he’s certainly something to look at, graceful in spite of his size. It occurs to Felix suddenly that he has been underestimating the functions Hawke could fill for the duration of his stay.

When Hawke has finished unpacking, he turns and waits patiently, eyebrows lifted just a little as if to say _well?_ Felix takes a breath. “A bath sounds lovely. But I, ah… I’ve been ill recently, as I’m sure Dorian has told you, and I may require some… assistance.” Not entire true, perhaps, but not entire false, either—he can feel the toll the journey has taken on him, and the extra help will be most welcome if not entirely necessary.

If Hawke senses his duplicity, he does not show it. “Of course,” he says without batting an eye. “Please sit, and I will be with you in a moment. Let me just call the maid for hot water.”

Felix sits, and tries not to sigh with relief at the plush weight of the chair beneath his bruised arse. The carriage wasn’t terribly uncomfortable, necessarily, but the length of the ride was a bane to his backside.

While the maid is bringing up buckets of water for the tub, Hawke busies himself setting out a fresh change of clothes for dinner. He makes no effort at conversation, and neither does Felix, but it’s… comfortable, somehow. When he comes to help Felix disrobe, the silence is calm and peaceful, like a velvet blanket to the rattling echoes of the carriage wheels still spinning in Felix’s head, and he stands readily and allows Hawke to whisk him free of jacket and collar and cravat.

In stocking feet and shirtsleeves, he follows Hawke to the bath situated behind a privacy screen. A lovely picture window stands there before it, swathed with clambering roses and opening onto a pleasing vista of the back gardens, and Felix lets his eyes wander from hedge to tree to lawn while Hawke helps him out of the rest of his clothes.

“Do you think you could open the window, just a little?” he says when he’s settled in the water, hot enough to tingle but not to scald, and scented with lavender and sandalwood. Without a word, Hawke goes to the shutter and cranks open the lead casing—it’s old, and the pieces move slowly and with a little protest, but when they’re open, the soft, flowery breeze it well worth it. “Thank you,” Felix says with sincerity, and he doesn’t think he’s imagining the faint surprise on Hawke’s face at the pleasantry.

“Of course. Is there anything else I may do for you, milord?”

“You can stop calling me _milord_ , for one thing,” Felix tells him, though it’s lightly teasing rather than chastising. “I thought Rutherford kept an informal household.”

“He does, that. But I, ah, wasn’t sure if you…” He hesitates for the first time, as if searching for the right words.

“I was an unknown. I understand. Well, Hawke, I can tell you plainly that I have lived most of my life with only a housekeeper and a butler, and have never been attended by a valet of any kind. So this will be a learning experience for both of us.” He smiles and rests his head back against the rim of the tub, letting his eyes fall shut. “I know it’s terribly improper, but I’d really much prefer it if you just called me _Felix._  Alexius in company, I suppose, if you must.”

There’s silence for a little bit, almost long enough to prompt him to reopen his eyes, but then he hears the clearing of a throat and a soft, “As you wish.”

Felix was hoping for reciprocation, but he supposes these barriers take a while to dissolve. “Is there something you would prefer that I call you, or is Hawke acceptable?”

“I—my name is Carver, sir. Felix. Hawke is my brother,” he adds, almost too quietly to hear, and Felix chuckles.

“I know what you mean. _Alexius_ is my father—I feel as if I barely have claim to the name at all.” He shifts a bit in the water and is pleasantly surprised when he hears a stool being pulled up. A slight lift of one eyelid reveals Hawke— _Carver_ —sitting at his elbow, preparing a wet sponge with lather. He extends one arm without saying anything and Carver takes his hand, running the sponge tenderly against his fingers, buffing away the grime of travel, and up his wrist all the way to his shoulder, working in slow circles. It’s almost like a massage, and when Felix says as much, voice thick with lassitude, Carver only hums and says, “Say the word and I can give you a real one. It’s a long way from London to sit in a ruddy great carriage like a single pea in a pod.”

Felix laughs in spite of himself at the comparison, but when Carver starts to mumble apologies he waves him off. “You’re quite right, please don’t apologize. I’d prefer it if you speak your mind.”

He opens his eyes just to see the reaction, and he is not disappointed. Carver is blushing, just a little, rosy in the tips of his ears, and when he reaches for Felix’s other wrist he fumbles, splashing a bit of the bathwater. “As you say,” he murmurs to cover the slip, and Felix lets him.

“I can take over from here,” he says after a while, once Carver has nearly put him to sleep with slow, devigorating circles along his chest and shoulders. His skin tingles wherever the sponge has been, and his blood feels thicker in his veins as he holds a hand out for the sponge. “I won’t force you to bathe me like I’m some sort of invalid.”

“At least allow me to finish your back,” Carver demurs, and so Felix leans forward a little and rests his head on his drawn-up knees as Carver soaps his spine and rinses the suds away with gentle splashes. His hands, when they graze his skin, are large and calloused, but his touches are so gentle in spite of his obvious strength—Felix shivers, just a little, and when Carver pauses to ask if he’s in pain he hardly has the wherewithal to reply.

“Not really. Just a bit sore.” He lays back again and tsks at the damp state of Carver’s frock coat. “You should take this off,” he says, taking the edge of a cuff between thumb and forefinger. “I’m afraid you’ll have to change as it is, but we may as well deflect the worst of the damage.”

Carver obeys silently, freeing the seemingly endless line of buttons, and he folds the garment neatly over the privacy screen. Underneath he’s wearing a crisp white shirt to match his necktie, and a navy blue waistcoat in the same hue as his frock coat, striped with a very thin tick of gold. It nips in close to a surprisingly trim waist, made trimmer by the breadth of his shoulders, and Felix is ashamed to admit he stares, a little, as Carver busies himself with rolling up his sleeves.

“Forgive me,” he says as Carver comes near again, reaching for the sponge, “but you don’t seem quite…”

“Quite what?” Carver asks, paused like a marionette held still mid-dance.

Felix swallows. “If I had to guess, I would have pinned you as more of the… horseman type.”

“Good eye,” Carver says, smiling easily—he doesn’t seem to have noticed Felix’s preoccupation with his arms and shoulders, thank goodness. “Before this I was a stablehand. I’m quite good with horses—less so with people,” he adds, almost as an afterthought.

“And yet Rutherford asked you to play the valet for me.”

He shrugs at this, and when he draws Felix’s foot from the water to start on his legs, he doesn’t stop him. “Perhaps he thought that if you should fall or have any sort of physical trouble, I could carry you wherever you needed.”

Felix scoffs, pretending offense in spite of his certainty that Carver _could_ carry him, quite effortlessly, whenever he needed. “Just for that, Mr Hawke, I will be taking that sponge. _Thank_ you.”

Carver gives it up without complaint, forehead wrinkled anxiously. “I did not offend you, I hope?”

“Oh, not at all. In fact you’re probably right.” Felix sighs, concentrating on scrubbing between his toes under the water even though Carver has already done an admirable job. “Dorian has rubbed off on him, I afraid—I fully anticipate being treated like a piece of bone china for the entirety of my stay.”

“What was wrong with you? May I ask that?” he adds hastily, but Felix is not offended.

“I have weak lungs, or so the doctors tell me. I grew up largely in India, and when I came to England with my father after my mother died, I became sick quite often—the cold and the damp, you see. Recently I’ve only just recovered from a bout of consumption, and it was recommended that I come to the countryside as soon as I was well enough.” He finishes his business with the sponge and sets it on its tray, leaning back again with a little sigh. “I will likely be traveling to warmer climes this winter, to avoid it.”

Carver hums rather than respond, and a moment later there’s warm water trickling along his scalp from his hairline. “If you could just tip your head up a moment,” he says. When Felix does so, strong fingers massage a rich, fragrant lather into his hair, cutting the pomade and leaving the strands soft and silky.

Somehow the hands in his hair feel more intimate than anything else that Carver has done for him. No one has touched his hair since his mother used to brush it and oil it into neat waves around his face, and nowadays he takes care of his own toilette rather than have the butler bother with unnecessary duties. His skin prickles beneath the water and he clasps the sides of the tub tightly as Carver guides him back down against the rim and rinses him with long, slow sweeps of his palm.

“Are you alright? I’m not hurting you, am I?”

Felix draws a breath. “I—no, you aren’t. It feels nice. I’m just not used to it.”

Carver’s wet fingers touch lightly to the skin of his face. “Your whiskers are in need of a trim, I think.”

Felix makes a small noise of assent and shifts his weight, sending water lapping against the sides of the tub. “You may do as you like. I haven’t the steadiness for it, at the moment.”

Hasn’t the steadiness, because something about Carver has befuddled him. He feels a bit trembly, strung out on the edge of something massive as Carver prepares his shaving kit. His whiskers are _always_ in need of a trim, in truth. He inherited his father’s penchant for growing hair wherever and however possible. It covers his arms and legs, lays thick over his chest and down his belly to his manhood, where he keeps it neat only for the sake of comfort. On his face it manifests in thick, arched brows that some have called _owlish_ , and a thick beard that he can never quite escape. Even when he’s freshly shaven, it’s a shadow under the skin, particularly since he came to England and lost all semblance of the warm brown skin he received from his mother.

“How short would you like it?” Carver asks, breaking him away from his musings. When Felix opens his eyes he stands ready with the strop, brush held aloft with foam like the penitent from some bizarre priesthood preparing to pay homage to his deity.

“Um. All the way, I suppose,” he says, and tips up his chin.

Carver has been nothing but gentle the entire time, but his fingers on Felix’s jaw and throat seem doubly so. He’s an expert with the straight razor, dragging it neatly along his skin, following the curls and contours of his stubble without so much as a nick. Felix keeps his eyes closed, pretending to be half asleep, but in reality he’s more awake than he’s been all day. His heart feels light in his chest, skipping ahead of its normal beat like a child with a rope, and although the water has cooled a little his skin feels hot and sensitive to the touch.

When the shave is over, it’s almost a relief. And yet now he’s faced with the prospect of getting out of the water, murky with soap and bath oils, and thoroughly embarrassing himself. Between the bath and the shave, he finds himself quite… _affected_.

“I’ll fetch your dressing gown,” Carver says, and whisks away, still a thin veneer of professionalism in place despite their easy conversation. When he returns, Felix has no choice—but there is no crisis. Carver holds up the dressing gown for him to step into, which he manages without stumbling, and then he’s wrapped up in cool, damp silk, and for all it clings to him in some places like a second skin, he feels a great deal more protected against shaming himself.

He knows he is not unique in this. Dorian and Cullen managed to find one another, even amidst the clawing and scrabbling of the _Ton_. But he is a guest in this house, and according to the rules of society, several social stratas above Carver’s station… to impose himself on him this way would be improper. Yet surely it is no crime to look?

So he does look. Carver bends to stoke the fire, and if Felix’s eyes linger as he settles himself in an armchair to dry, there is no one to see. When he straightens up again, he glances away and pretends to be pleasantly surprised when Carver brings him a towel for his hair.

“Are you sure you haven't done this before?” he asks, running pomade lightly through his damp hair while Carver stands at his elbow with a tray for his toilette.

“How do you mean?”

“Been a valet?”

Carver chews his lower lip briefly before answering. “No. I have served as a footman on occasion, but never as a valet.”

“Rutherford asked you to attend me specially, while I was here.”

A single, slow nod, and a little bit of that stiff, unperturbed facade that Felix had seen in him at first falls back into place. “That’s right, sir. If—if I am not satisfactory, of course he will see about providing you a replacement—”

“No! No, goodness, that’s not what I meant.” He replaces the pomade and sits forward in his chair, fiddling with the collar of his dressing gown. “You’re doing quite well, that’s all. I’m having a hard time believing you have no experience.”

Carver ducks his head, pleased. “If I were waiting on a _real_ —pardon me, on someone who was more accustomed to having valets, I’m sure I would not measure up.”

“Then it’s just as well I’m me, then, isn’t it?” He smiles and extends one hand. “Come, then. I was promised a massage.”

There’s a flicker of _something_ in Carver’s face as he helps Felix to his feet, the tiniest glimpse of an expression that would definitely not be welcome in polite company. But his professionalism slams back into place before Felix can mark it, and he is nothing but careful and composed as he guides Felix to the bed and proffers his hand.

“The dressing gown,” he explains, when Felix hesitates.

Thank goodness for his moment at the fire, because it gave him a bit of breathing room and he’s no longer in danger of embarrassing himself. He slips free of the dressing gown and Carver takes it graciously, turning to hang it by the fire to dry—and if his eyes flit down Felix’s body, grazing his skin like a physical touch, it’s over so quickly Felix might have only imagined it.

He climbs onto the bed with only a little difficulty and stretches his limbs out upon it—the coverlet has already been turned back, and the sheets are smooth and cool against his skin as he drops his head to the mattress. He glances over the swell of his arm and watches as Carver rolls his sleeves up and fetches some sort of oil from the bath. When he returns, spreading a little bit of it on his hands, Felix smells almonds and a little bit of vanilla, like a warm sugar tart fresh from the oven. He probes the roof of his mouth with his tongue and closes his eyes.

Carver clears his throat softly. “This can feel… quite intimate, for some people. If you wish me to stop, or pause, you have only to say.”

“I understand.” In spite of himself, a little lick of curiosity trembles down his spine, and when a light touch strokes along his shoulder blades, just briefly, he twitches ever so slightly in response. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right.” His voice is thick and warm, as if he’s holding back laughter. Felix smiles into the sheets and tries to relax as the touch comes again, firm but not harsh along the slope of his shoulders. And it goes on in that same vein—Carver is very gentle, at first, only stroking the skin here and there, acclimatizing Felix to his touch. The oil he uses eases the passage of his hands and banishes the tight, uncomfortable draw of his skin as it dries from the bath, and the aroma is almost like a drug, sending him into a deep stupor with each pass. When Carver starts to put his back into it a bit, rolling his knuckles down Felix’s spine and massaging his way along his arms to his wrists and back again, Felix hardly notices.

But his body does. While the mind sleeps, the flesh stirs as if summoned, filling his tender skin with thick, tremulous heat. When he stirs enough to lick his lips, he realizes that saliva has pooled in his mouth and an ache has started to flourish in his gut and down in the cradle of his hips. He shifts against the mattress and quivers when Carver’s strong hands begin to work the sore muscles of his thigh.

He starts high up, right beneath the swell of his arse, and Felix is suddenly wide awake. His thumbs follow that seam, a little half-moon, digging into the place where one muscle meets the next, and gods it feels _good_ , in so many conflicting ways. Then he moves southward, down to the back of his knee, and Felix lets himself relax. But if he hopes the rise and fall of tension in his body will go unnoticed, he is sorely mistaken.

“Alright?” Carver asks in a low voice, lingering over the arch of his left foot. The right leg is next, Felix knows, and the prospect is at once terrifying and luminous. “I can stop if you like?”

“No,” he says, perhaps too forcefully. “That is—I would like it if, if you continued.” He doesn’t know when his voice became so hoarse and stammering, but he suspects it was around the time Carver nearly had his hands on Felix’s backside.

“Good.” And then he moves to the other foot.

This way is worse, Felix thinks. Instead of a sudden flare and a slow decline, it’s a long, gradual build of anticipation as he works from arch to ankle to calf to thigh… He buries his face in the bedding and tries to breathe quietly, but his throat is sticky and his skin burns the farther Carver moves until he’s afraid he sounds like a lecher breathing his lust through a half-open mouth.

But Carver doesn’t seem put off. He works back up to the small of his back and rolls his hands there—and though it’s a lean place, more bone than flesh to Felix’s mind, it uproots the iron-hard tension that had been planted there by the carriage ride and leaves him feeling as boneless as a gutted fish.

“How do you know this?” Felix asks, though it comes out as more of a garbled moan.

“I have a plethora of talents,” Carver replies cheerfully, and his thumbs do something at the base of his spine that make Felix want to sob. “They have been wasted on the horses, I assure you.”

Felix laughs despite himself, and the pleased hum Carver makes in response kindles a curl of warmth low in his belly. Gods help him, but he might be in love. In love with Carver’s hands if nothing else, with the breadth of his shoulders and the sound of his laughter. He’s a man of the land through and through, evidenced in the strength of his hands and the rough manner of his speech, and no matter how starched his collar or pressed his frock coat, it still bleeds through and suffuses Felix with the warmth and comfort of a familiar hearth.

Then the spell is shattered when Carver withdraws at last and says, “Now if you would turn over, and I can do your front.”

Like a bucket of cold water dumped over him, Felix becomes keenly aware of his own physical state. He isn’t quite at the pinnacle of physical arousal yet, but the effect of Carver’s hands is definitely apparent—the flush creeping over his body, the glazed expression he’s certain he wears, and particularly the thickening state of his prick are all damning evidence.

“I—” he begins to say, and stops. What does he mean to say? To confess to his physical weakness? To demur, and send him away? Just the thought of it is nearly a physical ache, a pang of disappointment at the loss of Carver’s warm, solid presence. He can scarcely remember ever wanting to be rid of him.

“Felix?” Carver asks quietly, with a very light touch on the center of his back. “Would you rather I left?”

“I would rather you stayed,” Felix admits thickly, drawing his elbows underneath him as if in preparation to sit up. “But I’m afraid you will think me rather… indelicate.”

Carver makes a low noise somewhere between amusement and intrigue, and his hand moves in a little petting motion as if to soothe him. “Not possible.” There is a pause, silent but for the flickering of the fire, and somehow it isn’t uncomfortable or awkward in the least. “Sir—Felix,” Carver says at last, “you should know that… whatever you are comfortable with, I am comfortable with.”

“That’s quite a bold statement.”

“But true, nevertheless,” Carver says easily. “I’m a good read with people, usually, and I get a good feeling from you.”

Felix props himself up on his elbows and looks athwart his shoulder at him. “And if I were to ask you to tie me up and have your way with me? Would you be comfortable with that?”

Carver’s face blanks with surprise, and then he laughs, eyes like crinkled cornflowers pressed to dry between the pages of an open book. “I wouldn’t mind,” he says, frank as ever. “But I don’t think you will. Pardon my bluntness, but you seem… a bit softer than that.” As if moving in tandem with his words, his hand smooths down the plane of Felix’s back and he arches with it, just a little, without quite meaning to. Carver’s eyes burn blue and he lowers his voice to the shadow of a whisper. “Turn over.”

Felix could deny that order, if he wished, but he has no desire to. All shame has been stripped away by Carver’s honesty, and when he rolls onto his back and lets his thighs fall open on the sheets he feels only warmth and wanting. Carver trails his gaze down, past the hollow of his stomach and the sad jut of his hipbones, lingering only briefly where his manhood lays plump and interested against his inner thigh, and down to the curls of his toes and back up again. His hand moves too, light, assessing—the base of his collar, his sternum, his navel, the tops of his thighs. It isn’t a massage, per se, but Felix can feel his body uncurling nevertheless, any lingering tension dissolving under the benediction of Carver’s touch; but instead of holy water he leaves behind the slightest smudges of oil, a far more base and earthy kind of blessing.

And then Carver’s hand comes to his throat. Felix’s body, thrumming with life and vigor, draws up sharply, every inch of him focused on that light, soothing pressure. His mouth is dry, eyes half-shut as if in a dream world as Carver cups his chin, thumb sitting just in the soft part beneath the jawbone. He is entirely gentle, as always, and yet he feels caught, held, every part of his body focused on the warmth of Carver’s hand. It’s no wonder, he thinks, that Carver works so well with horses.

“May I kiss you?” Carver asks, sudden in the quiet.

“Please,” Felix replies, embarrassed at how desperate he sounds, how hungry for the affection of this man he barely knows. And yet he _does_ know him. He is familiar to Felix in a way that he cannot place, as if he knew him once in a dream, or in another life—the touch of his lips is new and yet not new, the taste of him like the taste of a lover once known and then forgot.

He kisses like he does everything else: firm, but with such exquisite gentility that Felix’s eyelids prickle, overwrought. He reaches up, unbidden, and his shoulders are just as firm and broad as they look. Felix holds them, the cloth of his waistcoat slippery beneath his grip, and opens his mouth when Carver’s tongue licks carefully at his lower lip.

The kiss breaks naturally, and Felix drops his head back to the mattress, dizzy with the weight of Carver’s body leaning over him. Carver’s lips are cherry-red and his pale skin finally flushed, pink along his cheekbones and the tops of his ears where his dark hair curls, starting to fall askew of its neat coif. Felix reaches up on impulse and runs his fingers through it, leaving a lock of hair falling over his forehead. He touches Carver’s cheek as he draws his hand away, but Carver captures it by the wrist, turning to kiss the pulse point and then each fingertip. Felix curls his hand and receives a kiss on the knuckles, too, marred by the shape of Carver’s smile.

“You are sweet,” Felix murmurs, and sighs when Carver smooths his thumb along the arch of his eyebrow.

“What would you have of me?” Carver asks, straightening up only to half-sit on the edge of the bed, still cradling Felix’s hand. “You have only to ask.”

“I would have you have _me_ ,” Felix says, and blushes. “Is that too forward?”

Carver laughs, soft but hearty nevertheless. “You are speaking to a farmboy, my lord. You need not worry about such things as _forward_.”

“And why not? Our different stations do not decree that I treat you with any less respect.” Irritated by the suggestion, yet softened with arousal, Felix turns his hand in Carver’s grip and draws one large paw up to his mouth to kiss in turn. Coarser than Felix’s, perhaps, riddled with more scars and callouses, yet lovely all the same. “It’s true, I find you… very appealing.” He blushes, a little, and the curious smile on Carver’s face grows broader in reply. “But you are—I could not bear the thought, if you were to, to demean yourself for my gratification simply because I am a _lord_ , and you a valet.” He enunciates the word ‘lord’ with a thick layer of disdain, hating himself a little. In spite of his _scandalous_ parentage, he has enjoyed a very privileged life in England and in India both, and he knows that his particular lifestyle has been permitted because of the status of his father. But if he were to somehow cause Carver discomfort or ill-will among his peers… no. He would much rather send him away than suffer such a thing.

“My… Felix.” The beginning of the _my lord_ , cut off abruptly and spliced with Felix’s given name, becomes a sweeter, softer thing in his mouth, and Felix smiles in spite of himself.

“Say that again.”

Carver’s lips twitch but he does not deny him, bending to kiss the words into his hair. “My Felix. Don’t trouble yourself, please. You have nothing to fear for my reputation, not here—not when the master of the house is… well.” He stops and looks askance at him. “ _You_ know. The world can be an unkind place for men such as we, but here… here it is different. Lord Rutherford saw to that, when he inherited the place.”

“And I am glad of it.” _Men such as we._ Felix reaches out and hooks a finger between the buttons on Carver’s waistcoat. “Will you disrobe for me?”

“With pleasure.” A last kiss to his lips and Carver rises from the bed, plucking open the buttons one by one and tugging free the knot of his simple cravat. Then his shirt, the whole of it draped neatly over the back of a chair, and Felix can’t help himself—he sits up and beckons him to stand between his knees, aching for a closer look.

“Gods but you are beautiful.” Miles of creamy skin, flecked here and there with dark beauty marks, his nipples a pale pebbled pink… He reaches out and touches, feeling the warmth and firmness of him, and Carver ducks his head a little, bashful. “I mean it. Look at you.”

“I’d rather look at you,” Carver tosses back saucily, but his jovial expression fades at the look on Felix’s face. “What is it?”

“I… I would rather you didn’t,” Felix says, with a forced chuckle that scrapes at his insides. “I’m not much to look at these days.”

Carver’s mouth turns down, and suddenly Felix finds himself smothered with kisses—to his mouth, his hair, his shoulders, everywhere that Carver can reach without kneeling. And then he _does_ kneel, mouthing the folds of his belly and kissing up along his ribs, still sharper than he’s used to. Caught by surprise, Felix gasps and leans into it, hands finding Carver’s hair and combing through it, cradling his skull as Carver nuzzles one thigh and then the other.

“Don’t say that,” he breathes, with one last kiss to the middle of his chest. His hands curl around his waist and steady him there as he looks up at him from the floor, now decidedly dishevelled and a stern look hovering around his eyes. He stands, still holding Felix ‘round the waist, and ducks to press their foreheads together. “You are perfectly lovely. I’ve never seen skin like yours before.”

“My mother,” Felix starts to explain, but then he falls quiet, silenced by the weight of Carver’s hand cupping the back of his neck. “I’m told I take after her.”

“She must have been beautiful,” Carver murmurs with such perfect sincerity that he blushes. His other hand grazes his thigh, the outside and then the inside, straying close to where his interest waxes and wanes with the ebb and flow of their conversation. “May I?”

Felix bites his lip and nods. When Carver takes him in hand, giving an experimental stroke, he sighs and drops his head to Carver’s chest. “Oh…”

“Lay back,” Carver says when he’s fully hard and aching, heart throbbing in time with the pulse of blood through his body. He obeys, though his limbs are stiff and uncoordinated, laying back against the pillows. Carver slips out of his breeches and stockings and climbs into bed almost in the same movement. He is warm and large and present, taking up Felix’s entire range of view, and then he lays down beside him, propped aloft on one elbow to drop kisses on his upturned mouth. “Beauty,” Carver murmurs, smiling when Felix shifts and makes a small impatient noise against his lips. “What you said earlier… do you still want that?”

For a moment Felix is at a loss. His mind wanders back, grasping for his meaning, and then lands very square and suddenly on his words several minutes ago. _I would have you have me._ Gods preserve him from his loose tongue. He blushes as he nods, tantalized by the very thought. “Please.”

Carver smiles and reaches for the little vial of oil he’d used for Felix’s massage. “Roll onto your stomach.”

He does, strangely grateful for the opportunity to bury his face in the pillows. It gives him something to hang onto as Carver kneels between his thighs and spreads them wider with a gentle hand, then dabs a bit of oil just below his sacrum and drags his fingers down, smoothing the skin he finds there. Just as he had with the rest of his body, Carver massages him gently, preparing him with a careful hand.

Felix is hard against the sheets when Carver coaxes him over onto his back in the middle of the bed. He doesn’t leave him in suspense, but takes him in hand immediately, giving him a few long, delicious pulls that have him squirming and clutching the sheets—truly the hands of an artist. His own manhood is considerable, and he feels a flash of uncertainty at the sight of it, jutting proudly away from Carver’s body, flushed and gleaming at the tip. But just as quickly, it’s gone again. If he wields his cock with the same finesse as his hands, Felix has nothing to worry about.

Still, he feels the need to excuse himself as Carver readies him with a pillow beneath the small of his back: “It’s been quite some time since I’ve… indulged.”

Carver touches his cheek. “Would you rather something else?”

“No—no. I trust you. I just… wanted you to know.”

“Noted.” With a slight smile, he bends and kisses his mouth sweetly, coaxing their tongues together until Felix is restless and hot under the skin. When he grabs Carver’s upper arms in a demanding grip, he takes his cue and scoops one hand under Felix’s crooked knee, nudging at his nether entrance with the head of his cock. “Bear down for me, love,” he breathes. And Felix does, and _oh_ …

“Gods,” he whispers, fingers turned to claws as his body gives way like it was made for it. Carver doesn’t rush him, nudging his way forward a little bit at a time, and the overwhelm gradually fades as he rocks there, shallow, his powerful thighs flexing with every tiny movement. “You are…”

“Good?”

“Good,” he huffs, and presses his head back into the pillow as far as he can with the effort not to cry out. Carver is enormous, but it doesn’t _hurt_ , it’s just… so much. So good. “Incredible,” he says aloud, voice taut with strain, and Carver catches his hand in his for a courtly kiss, so out of place in the midst of that tableau and yet just what Felix needs. “Carver…”

“Tell me, sweet thing. Tell me what you need.”

Felix shakes his head mutely. There’s nothing more he could ask for in the entire world at that exact moment. He has achieved, somehow, the precise collusion of timing and necessity, so that everything he could possibly want at precisely the right hour of his life has blended together in exquisite fulfillment.

Carver kisses him, and that breaks the spell. He gasps and pries his fingers away, leaving red marks behind that will surely turn to bruises, and grabs at his hair instead as his body gives way just a bit more. This provokes a growl from deep inside Carver’s chest, and the next movement of his body has a little more weight behind it, a little more _intent_. But Felix isn’t afraid—he’s exhilarated. He hasn’t felt like this since before he got sick, hasn’t been so close to another human being in even longer, and he feels as if he’s falling apart in the best way.

“You can—” he stammers, managing to hook one leg around Carver’s trim waist, “you can go faster, if you like.”

“Mmmm.” Carver sprinkles kisses along the damp curve of his throat, careful not to leave a mark. “What if I want to go _slow_?” But he deepens his strokes nevertheless, hips flush to Felix’s body on every push inward. The lethargic pace is equal parts maddening and delicious, and Felix is worrying his lower lip nearly to pieces trying to keep quiet. Then Carver kisses him, soft and delicate on his abused lip, and he cries out before he can stop himself.

“It’s all right,” Carver says, low and hungry against his ear. “Make as much noise as you like—no one will say anything.” As if in illustration, he groans, heartfelt, as he pulls out slowly and presses back into Felix’s body in one smooth stroke. “You know what sort of house this is.”

It’s the encouragement Felix needed but wasn’t sure how to ask for—he lets go. One hand in Carver’s hair and the other curled against his mouth, grounding rather than muffling, he gasps and sighs and grunts as Carver’s strokes grow shorter and deeper, crying out whenever the angle is particularly sweet. Carver’s murmurs of appreciation only spur him on. _Beautiful, you’re amazing, you feel so good, so tight, my Felix…_

“Oh,” he gasps, and whimpers when a hot mouth and sharp, blunt teeth smear against his chest and shoulders. His fingers curl tighter and he drags Carver up to kiss his mouth, sloppy, hips kicking forward to meet him. “Carver, _please_.”

“I’m giving you everything I have, sweet thing,” Carver says, but he’s got a rakish grin that Felix doesn’t trust and so he tightens his grip further and leans up to mark him, right at the base of his throat where his cravat will hide it easily.

“Liar.”

“Clever. Mmmm, c’mon then. See how you like it like this.”

He scoops his hands under Felix’s hips and rolls them to the side, and suddenly Felix is perched atop him, hands splayed against his chest for support. He angles one hand to rub his thumb over one of Carver’s pink nipples, and the kick of his hips in his reward.

“Is this all right for you?” Carver asks, serious in the midst of everything, and Felix knows what he means—he’s asking whether he can handle it, like this, taking his own weight on his legs, doing more of the work even though Carver is having no trouble keeping the rhythm, belly flexing and tensing with each thrust. He nods, chin dropping loosely to his chest, and he can’t help but laugh a little as he sits back on Carver’s prick and takes him deep.

“It’s perfect. I find myself… strangely invigorated. _Oh_ …”

“You’re lovely like this,” Carver says, almost too quietly to hear. “Truly.” He spreads one hand on Felix’s taut thigh and lifts the other to his face, stroking the freshly shaven skin. Felix has to close his eyes against that gaze, so blue and perfect, and that seems to snap everything into sharp focus: the thick heat of Carver’s prick inside him, the sweat coating his body, the sound of their lovemaking resonating quietly in the room. The mattress creaks ever so slightly, barely audible over the crackling fire, and his own breath grows ragged in his chest, overtaking everything else until it’s all he can hear.

“Carver,” he rasps, when his body grows weak and trembling and he’s afraid he might fall. Carver surges up and takes him in his arms, and Felix buries his face in his neck as he tights, twisting, every fiber of himself drawn into an endless knot of pleasure and suspense.

“Let yourself go, my love,” Carver whispers in his ear, one hand steadying his hip and the other cupping the nape of his neck, drawing him in closer and closer until Felix thinks their bodies might just meld together and explode into infinite glorious pieces. He sobs aloud, clinging to the sweaty planes of his back, and finally finds the precipice.

Coming down comes in waves, and Carver is a rock through all of it. When Felix comes back to himself like a sailor washed up on a lonely beach, Carver is there, a bastion for him to rest upon and breathe. He exhales into the sweaty curve of his neck and goes willingly when Carver turns them both, laying Felix out upon the mattress like so much sun-wrung kelp. And when Felix tries to sit up, hand reaching awkwardly for Carver’s hip, Carver only takes his hand and kisses the back of it before lying beside him, half-covering him as if to protect him from a silent, invisible storm.

“You haven’t—” Felix says, and the touch of a finger to his lips draws him silent.

“But you have,” Carver whispers in his hair, and smiles. When Felix’s brow wrinkles with confusion, he kisses it and his mouth after, and even though the rigid length of his manhood is brushing the outside of Felix’s thigh, he doesn’t seem in any great rush to take care of it. “And it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

Felix didn’t think he could blush any more. He turns his face away, rosy-cheeked and flushed down to his sternum, and yet he can’t help the little noise of pleasure that escapes when Carver pets his collar. “Sweet talker,” he says, but it’s not quite the accusation he tries to make it.

“I have the tongue of a poet, it’s true.” There’s a smile in his voice as he adds, sultry, “Perhaps next time you’ll see that for yourself.”

And _there_ is a thought. Carver on his knees, that wicked mouth around Felix’s prick, or buried between his thighs—and he must stop himself there, else he may faint dead away from arousal. He groans and curls his body into Carver’s, willing away the chill. “Horrible, horrible man. I look forward to it.” He pets the broad chest in front of him, gratified when Carver makes a little breathy noise in his throat when his fingers glance off a nipple. “Are you quite sure you don’t wish for more?”

“I don’t wish to discomfit you…”

“Impossible.” His cock is still hard when Felix wraps his fingers around its girth, the skin soft with oil. “You have done nothing but put me at ease since you entered this room. Now please, let me do the same for you.”

Carver’s soft smile breaks, crumpling into something more raw as he curls his hips into Felix’s hand. They kiss, damp and slightly askew of one another, and Carver’s fingers find the side of his face, holding him there as he strokes him firmly. “Faster,” he whispers against his lips, and Felix obliges.

Carver is quieter by far, but his face tells the whole story. His cheeks flame pink and his kisses blur into soft gasps, and then he goes utterly still and silent and Felix’s hand grows wet with spend as he finds completion. Afterward his entire body seems to slump further into the mattress, and he rolls onto his back with a long sigh and a smile curling his pink mouth. Felix follows with a kiss, and he rises to fetch a handkerchief for the mess.

When he returns, Carver is open-armed and apologetic, but Felix kisses his murmurs quiet. “Don’t. Let me do this for you, you silly man.”

Somewhere down below in the house, a bell rings for dinner. Felix groans and turns into the pillow. “Is it really so late already?”

“I’m afraid so,” Carver says, laughter in his voice. “Come, my dear. Let me dress you.”

Felix sighs. “Still my valet, after all that?”

“ _Particularly_ your valet. As if I would let anyone else have the privilege now.” His brow furrows slightly nevertheless, and he withdraws his hand from where it had been drawing circles on his hip. “Unless you would rather…?”

“Darling, we’ve talked about this.” He flings his arm proprietarily around Carver’s waist and drags their bodies together. “I want you here. With me.”

“Then I will do so happily. But,” he adds, with a quick kiss, “I must wait at the dinner table, with or without you there. And I would much rather have you there.”

“Then I shall be.” With a faint groan of protest, Felix sits and swings his legs over the edge of the bed. In spite of the day’s trials, and its more recent rigors, he finds his body rejuvenated, the muscles lax and comfortable, and all his bruises negligible in comparison to the contentment settling deep into his bones. Beside him, Carver rises and begins collecting their clothing, and Felix watches him with a faint smile. The next few months have suddenly taken on a rosier glow.

“Dorian will know straight away,” Carver warns him later, as he fluffs Felix’s cravat and slides the little jeweled pin in place at the base of his throat. “It doesn’t matter how we try to hide it—that man can sniff out sodomy at twenty paces.”

Felix barks with laughter and turns to assess his image in the mirror. “I would be disappointed if he didn’t—I have every faith that he saw to this assignment in the first place.” He turns in place, eyeing himself critically. But he can find no flaw with Carver’s job; in fact, he reckons he couldn’t have done one half so nice. His coat is freshly brushed, a deep forest green that Carver claims kindles the green tones in his dark grey eyes, and the charcoal waistcoat peeking out from underneath matches his sleek, form-fitting breeches. Behind him in the mirror, re-attired in everything but his frock coat, Carver flips up the tails of his coat very briefly and palms his arse in some pretence at settling the fabric, and Felix starts, glaring at his reflection.

“You look splendid,” Carver says, not contrite in the least. He reaches for his own coat and Felix sighs to see his thick arms and broad chest once again swaddled in the thick cloth. “Do you require assistance to the dining room, milord?”

“Hush yourself, sir. And don’t worry about me—oh, where did I put my cane?”

“Here.” Carver fetches it from where it rests in the corner, and then Felix feels complete. As much as he hates it, sometimes, the weight of it in his hand is a familiar comfort.

“I suppose it’s time to face the music,” Felix sighs. “We are already fashionably late.”

As if summoned by his words, there comes a quick rap on the door and Dorian’s voice comes through, slightly muffled, “Felix! Have you fallen asleep in there? Or simply fallen, and are too proud to ask for help?”

Felix exchanges a look with Carver, and the other man goes to whisk open the door just before Dorian lets himself in. “I’m not on the floor, Dorian, although your concern is appreciated,” he says with just a little bit of sharpness. Dorian has the grace to look ashamed of himself. “Carver was simply helping me with the finishing touches.”

“Hmm. Yes, you do look quite smart. And very refreshed.” Dorian pauses in the doorway, glancing between them like a bloodhound with a scent. Felix sighs inwardly. “Well come along, darling, dinner is nearly served.” He holds out his elbow, and because Felix is not entirely cruel, he takes it and lets himself be led away. He manages to catch Carver’s eye as they leave, and though his expression is smooth and unruffled, there’s a wicked twinkle to his eyes that makes him bite his lip to keep from laughing.

“So,” Dorian drawls, lifting him from his private amusement, “do you think you’ll get on with your new valet? Cullen vouched for him or I would never have allowed it—in my own interview with the man he seemed quite surly.”

“Likely because you spoke to him like he was a piece of lint on your shoe,” Felix replied, bringing his cane down smartly against the treaded carpet with every step. “I think we’ll get on just fine.”

“Truly? That is marvelous news. I had thought you were dead set against having a personal servant attend you in such an… intimate way.”

Felix blushes—he can’t help himself. Dorian is refined enough not to crow about it, but he smiles like a cat with cream caught in its whiskers as he mumbles, “I’ve changed my mind.”

“Lovely. I shall have to thank Cullen personally. I find it so difficult to trust him with household matters, but I suppose he does have an eye for certain things. He’s like the commander of a little army of his own, here, have you noticed? Well, perhaps you haven’t seen much of it yourself, yet. You _have_ been otherwise occupied.” He doesn’t drag the worst out, per se, but there’s definitely a lilt of laughter to them that tells Felix he knows exactly what went on in the hour or so since Felix went up to his guest rooms.

“I look forward to seeing it first hand.” He squeezes Dorian’s arm meaningfully. “He’s good for you, Dor. Don’t cock it up, will you?”

Dorian tsks, but his attempt at joviality falls flat for once. “I shall do my very best, my dear. Now come, enough dull talk—here is the dining room. The smaller one, of course,” he adds with a note of pride to his voice. As a bachelor without an inheritance, scraping by on his own wits and cleverness, it’s no wonder that Dorian is so pleased to have snared an _intimate friend_ with so many material assets.

And other assets as well, Felix muses to himself as Cullen welcomes them to the table—a modest affair in a beautifully appointed drawing room that looks out over a wooded, rambling garden at the side of the house. Glass-paneled doors are flung wide to admit the smell of roses and fresh country air, and the master of the house is clearly already more at ease here than in town, his golden curls slightly mussed—likely Dorian’s doing—and his ruddy cheeks and bright eyes filled with laughter. He seats them and pours the wine himself, although there is a footman standing attendance at the door to pass dishes back and forth, and they’re halfway through the creamy asparagus soup when Carver appears, silent as a shadow, to facilitate the meal.

Felix thinks he does well at ignoring his presence. It’s a fairly light meal given their journey, only three courses apart from desert, and he makes it halfway through the third before Cullen catches him out, quite accidentally.

“I hope you don’t mind that I asked Hawke to wait on you while you stay with us,” he says as they set about demolishing their roast duck and spring potatoes. “When I learned that you had no valet of your own I was afraid I might have offended somehow.”

“I don’t mind at all,” Felix replies smoothly, wondering how Rutherford can speak so plainly about another person in the same room without addressing them. “He’s been quite helpful.”

“I’m glad to hear it. I rarely require the services of a valet myself—I keep a fairly sparse household,” Cullen says modestly, as if the small army of maids and footmen about the place could be considered _sparse_ . Sparser than many other nobles of his station, Felix supposes. His own father cares more for research and his studies than for parading his wealth about to his peers, but Halward Pavus was always the peacock his name suggested, right up until the moment he died with great dramatic flair in his own bed of _a broken heart_ , or so he claimed.

“If I had known what I was missing perhaps I would have hired one sooner,” Felix says instead of thinking about Halward, eyes drifting across the room to where Carver is fetching the after-dinner port from the drinks cabinet. “Or perhaps Carver is just that skilled.”

“Carver?” Dorian says with a faint air of put-upon surprise. “Goodness, how unusual to be on a first name basis already.”

Felix blushes and looks at his plate, wishing he could stomp on Dorian’s foot for that remark. He hears Carver make a small noise, and he whisks out of the room, port in hand. “I wish you wouldn’t speak about him while he can hear,” Felix says sharply, as the door swings shut behind him. “He was remarkably helpful and put me at ease, and I hate to have you disparage him so.”

“Put you at ease? I suppose that’s how they’re referring to buggery in town these days?”

Felix drops his fork with a clatter. Across the table Dorian reclines supine and smug, and at the head of it Cullen sits very still, mid-chew, watching the both of them as if their conversation were a bout of fencing. “Right. I find I’ve quite lost my appetite. If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I think I’ll retire for the evening.”

Dorian’s smirk slips and he pushes back his chair in tandem with Felix, though he does not rise from it. “Felix, please, don’t be such a prude. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“No? Then perhaps you’d best keep your tongue to yourself, next time, and save yourself the trouble.” He grabs for his cane but it falls, and rather than disgrace himself bending to retrieve it, he leaves it where it lies and walks stiffly to the door. The footman, a great deal younger than Carver with blazing red hair and a flush of freckles, steps smartly to get the door for him in spite of his wide-eyed look, and Felix silently curses Dorian for his quick tongue. Now the entire household will know what happened, and likely conflate it wildly out of proportion.

He stops in the hallway to breathe, massaging his chest for a moment as he tries to calm down. The door is still cracked behind him and he can hear conversation, low and furious, but he tunes it out, not wishing to hear whatever platitudes his hosts are exchanging. _Buggery indeed_ , he thinks—reducing the raw, beautiful intensity of his time with Carver to a punchline! _As if Dorian were one to point fingers on that score._

Footsteps sound a quiet approach, muffled by the carpet, and he draws himself up in preparation to send whoever it is away—but it’s only Carver. Big and solid and comforting, and carrying a tray with three cut-crystal tumblers and the port, its cork removed to let it breathe. Felix subsides against the wall and looks away.

“I apologize for Dorian—he’s too brilliant for his own good, and he always has to mouth off about it.”

“Don’t apologize. But you look upset, did something happen when I stepped out?”

“Nothing of consequence,” Felix lies, though his fists are still quivering with anger and frustration. He had come here to _relax_ , for goodness’ sake, and here he is letting Dorian rile him as he used to when they were boys running riot in Bombay. “I simply grew weary and wished to retire.”

“Then I will serve the port and be up to assist you,” Carver says immediately. Then, with more care, as if noticing for the first time that Felix is _not well_ , “Where is your cane?”

“Here.” The crack in the door widens and Dorian appears within it, holding Felix’s cane with a shamefaced expression. “Felix, please accept my most humble apologies. I didn’t mean to upset you.” He glances at Carver and adds, “And you, Hawke. I spoke out of turn. Felix is my friend, but his private life is still sacred and it wasn’t my place to say what I said.”

Felix can feel Carver practically vibrating with curiosity next to him, so he clearly didn’t overhear their argument, but he doesn’t have the energy to explain it to him now. Instead he accepts the cane with a nod as gracious as he can make it, curling his fingers around the handle with a little twinge of relief.

“Apology accepted.” He has never been able to stay mad at Dorian for long.

“I won’t press you,” Dorian continues, “but I hope you’ll join us for a glass of port and dessert. I’m told the cook outdid himself as a welcome to Honnleath.”

“It’s true,” Carver murmurs when Felix hesitates. “I snitched some, earlier.”

Felix snorts a little laugh in spite of himself and gives in. “All right then. But only one glass of port, or I’ll be put to sleep immediately.”

Carver follows them back into the dining room with his tray, and Cullen greets them with relief plain on his face. But, ever the good host, he says nothing about their disagreement and simply thanks Carver for serving them and asks for a pot of coffee to go with their desert.

“Not a very English custom,” Dorian remarks, clearly reigning in his desire to wax rhapsodic about Carver’s pretty manners and excellent service. “You do so spoil me, darling.”

 _Darling, is it_ , Felix thinks, but it’s without malice. He can see how happy Dorian is, and he doesn’t begrudge him that, not when it’s so hard-won. When Carver brings the coffee service, he lets his eyes linger on him, and relaxes in the knowledge that no one will say anything or think oddly of it, not now that the air has been cleared. And the little _thank-you_ he offers earns a small, wicked smile teasing at the corners of Carver’s mouth—a mouth he will kiss later, he hopes, and that cheerful thought is enough to soothe him into quiet contentment for the rest of the meal.

The evening ends with a small tour of the library. It’s grand and well-stocked enough to make Felix’s fingers itch, so he grips his cane with more determination and forces himself to listen to Cullen’s little lecture about the architecture.

Dorian soon wanders away to peruse the books on natural science, and Felix lingers behind with Cullen, watching as the last dregs of daylight fade away beyond the narrow panes of glass that march around the border of the half-moon shaped room, like lancets marking time around the face of an enormous clock. After a minute or two of peaceful reflection, Cullen clears his throat. Felix braces himself.

“Carver is an old childhood friend of mine. His family has served mine for two generations, and I grew up with him and his sisters.”

Felix makes a polite noise in his throat and waits for the other shoe to drop.

“It’s a bit of a sad story, actually. His father was the head gardener for my parents, and he was a fine man—his mother was of noble blood, in fact, of a very minor house, but she eloped with Carver’s father and chose to live a life of poverty instead of privilege.”

“Because she was in love,” Felix says quietly, mostly to himself. It doesn’t seem that sad a story at all.

“She was,” Cullen agrees, smiling a little. “Unfortunately Carver’s father died when we were still boys. He had been training up to become a footman, but in the aftermath he grew too surly and he was moved to the stables. I think he preferred it there, anyway.”

Felix tightens his grip on his cane, glancing through the empty library. Carver is nowhere to be seen, likely tending to his duties outside of looking after Felix, but it still feels strange to be hearing such personal details about his life. “Why are you telling me all this?” he asks, and gets a short, self-conscious laugh for his trouble.

“I’m sorry, it’s a bit out of the blue, isn’t it? I only wanted you to know—Carver means a lot to me. We’ve fallen out of touch in recent years, likely because of the differences in our social status, but I recall our boyhood adventures fondly and I… well. I want him to be happy.” He turns to look at him, and his eyes are blue and very direct. “Just as, I believe, Dorian wants _you_ to be happy.”

“I… see.” Taken aback, Felix turns to scan the shelves. Dorian is engrossed in a book, leaning against the shelf with his ankles crossed, and just inside the door is the footman from before, looking to be half asleep at his post. The sight of him provokes a yawn, and he muffles it delicately behind one wrist. “Thank you very much for your hospitality, but it’s been a long day and I’m ready to retire. Have a pleasant evening.”

“I hope you sleep well,” Cullen says, entirely without guile. As Felix bids him goodnight and departs, he wonders how Dorian managed to fall for such an honest, uncomplicated man.

He mounts the stairs without any anticipations, and is pleasantly surprised to enter his rooms and find Carver there waiting for him. He’s sitting at the hearth mending something, but he rises when Felix comes in and smiles when he approaches and leans right into his comfortable bulk. He’s down to waistcoat and shirtsleeves, and he smells warm and familiar as his hands come up to frame Felix’s jaw.

“I thought you might be coming up soon,” he says, accepting the kiss Felix leans up on his tiptoes to give.

“I didn’t meant to disrupt you…”

“Nonsense. It’s busywork. I was expecting you.” He fingers the jeweled pin fixing Felix’s cravat in place. “Would you like to dress for bed?”

“Yes, please.”

Carver undresses him piece by piece, setting everything aside to air or be cleaned as required, and when he’s swathed in his nightshirt and dressing gown, he sits him by the fire and brushes the pomade from his hair until he’s nearly asleep. Still, he gathers his flyaway thoughts for long enough to ask the question that’s been weighing on his mind since after dinner.

“Is it inappropriate of me to… ask you to stay?”

“Stay?” Carver echoes, one hand resting heavy on his shoulder. “The night, you mean?”

“Yes. I… don’t want to impose, of course, I know we’ve only just met…”

“It’s not an imposition,” Carver says quietly. “There is a cot made up for me in the next room, in fact, so this is simply… one step closer.”

“More than just one, I should think,” Felix tuts, provoking gentle laughter and a hand smoothing back his hair. “I don’t want to make more trouble for you than absolutely necessary. We hardly know one another, after all.”

“I wouldn’t say that. We certainly know each other in a… _Biblical_ sense,” he says with a wicked cant to his voice. But when Felix draws breath to protest he soothes him quiet with a hand in his hair and continues, “But I don’t just mean that. It’s strange to say, but I feel as if we have…”

“Met before,” Felix says, finishing when Carver trails off.

“Yes. Or not met, exactly, but.” He stops again, short with frustration, and Felix rises from the chair to look him in the eye.

“I know. I felt it earlier, when we… Well. There’s no point in thinking about it, is there? We were strangers until today, and if there seems to be some connection between us, some spark… well, Dorian would call that _chemistry_.”

“Funny sense of humor fate has, doesn’t it? A noble and a servant?”

“Social status is for the dogs,” Felix says, shaking his head. “I don’t care for it, and neither does my father. And if you _do_ care for it, we’re both half-nobles anyway, only from different ends of the spectrum.”

“I—who told you about that?”’

“Rutherford,” Felix admits, suddenly wondering if he’s crossed a line. “I apologize if my bringing it up was untoward.”

“It wasn’t, no, I was just… surprised.” He takes him by the hand and leads him toward the bed. “How are you half noble?”

“My mother was Indian—it’s a bit of a scandal. Father went abroad in his youth to study, and he fell in love with a local girl. Married her, in fact. He ended up living there for many years, until I was very nearly a young man, and when mother died we spend the summers here so I could learn to be a lord instead of the little ruffian I was.”

“It must have worked,” Carver says, smiling as he follows Felix down onto the mattress. “Your decorum is impeccable.”

“Except for the small fact that I seduced my own valet within an hour of meeting him?”

“Please,” Carver scoffs. “If there was any seducing going on, it was me.”

“Hmm.” But Felix gives up the argument in favor of curling up against Carver’s chest, breathing him in, listening to his body as it settles—the whispers of limbs moving against the sheets, his steady breath, the beat of his heart. He lays his hand over Carver’s bare chest. “Will you kiss me goodnight?”

“With pleasure.”


End file.
